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Please feel free to email me with any questions, comments, or requests. I love a challenge and welcome all your feedback!

billacakes (at) gmail (dot) com

What's Cooking At Billa Cakes?

Billa Cakes is the brain child of one hot mama: Me! It's named for my daughter Sybilla, who is my inspiration and motivation. I love baking and as an artist, it gives me an outlet for my creativity as well as an opportunity to help create memories for a lifetime.

Currently this is a hobby to gain experience, but someday I plan on making it into a full time gig! My training includes some classes from my local baking supply shops, the Food Network and the internet. I am a full time student in the School of Hard Knocks.

My hope with this site is to showcase my work as I develop my business and to share my learning experiences with others so they can learn too. Thanks for following along!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

As I slaved away in the kitchen making cookies for a party and cookie pops for my daughter's class, I realized I am becoming my mom. My mom is a very talented seamstress and I don't have near the patience or precision that she does (which is saying a lot, considering I made both of my prom dresses in high school and the majority of my wardrobe throughout high school and college and worked in the costume shop).

Finished cookie pops

For Valentine's Day (and Halloween and Christmas too), my mom refused to give in to what she considered the easy way out--buying a box of pre-printed character valentines and writing on them. No, she prefered to challenge herself a bit and really make the holiday special. Instead, she would sew tiny stuffed hearts for each child in my class. And my brother David's. And my brother Philip's! And if that weren't enough, she'd then use puff paint to applique each kid's name on them. We're talking roughly 100 hearts each year (and candy canes and pumpkins). The kids loved these and they loved them more than anything else. In fact, I still had classmates in high school who would tell me that either a) they still had theirs or b) they always remembered that as their fondest class memory of that holiday.

So as I'm piping red royal icing onto heart shaped cookie pops, I had a moment where I realized that I am becoming just like my mother. The rebellious kid inside me who always hated being compared to her mom suddenly panicked. "I'm becoming my mom!" But the mother aspect of me pushed that aside and asked gently, "Is it really THAT bad?" I thought about for all of two seconds and then decided, "No...not really." I actually felt kinda proud to carry on my mom's tradition of doing things differently (I'd say legacy, but some people might think she's dead, which she is very much NOT, thank goodness!).

And you know what? I'm glad I did.

Our daycare provider told me later that she had told the kids they could have one treat from their Valentine's Day stashes and as soon as they saw the cookie pops, that was what they wanted, no if's and's or but's. Seriously, could anyone NOT burst with pride for that?! I mean, I knew the kids liked the cookie pops from Christmas, but I didn't know they liked them that much. I'd even made sure to include some extras for any parents that were around that day. Out of the twelve I sent, I came home with one.

Billa's class getting ready to eat their cookie pops

So now cookie pops have become a tradition...and what a sweet tradition that is to carry on!